Traveling always presents many challenges when it comes to your health and fitness lifestyle. Being away from home means that you don’t have access to your usual workout routine, equipment, trainers or classes. In addition to taking you out of your workout comfort zone, being on the road means many of your meals have to be quick and convenient—aka unhealthy. Whether you are traveling for vacation or for work, the days always seem to be shorter making scheduling time to work out more challenging.

If you have driven past the Ganzavort recently you may have noticed something missing—Philippe. But no need to worry, Philippe hasn’t left Miami. In fact, I think they made an upgrade to the South of Fifth neighborhood—specifically the old Tavrena Opa location. This means you don’t have to park your car valet anymore—unless you want to of course. Now most people may not associate healthy or healthier with Chinese but I am very pleased to report that you can get both at Philippe—yes, even healthy!

For my latest chapter in “Take’s Take: Healthier Fine Dining”, I head over to City Hall in Downtown Miami located at 2004 Biscayne Blvd. Not the actually city hall where government stuff happens—or doesn’t happen—but City Hall the restaurant. I’m sure the owner Steven Haas, who has had his fair share of political experience, has probably been to a city hall or two.

My latest stop for “Take’s Take: Healthier Fine Dining” takes me to Symcha’s, a new kid on the block located at 22 Washington Avenue in South Beach…Now I rarely order the daily specials or off-menu choices, so when the server started to explain them to me I tried my best to pretend I was listening while simultaneously scanning the menu. With that said, once I heard “Japanese hamachi”, he my attention! Being (half) Japanese and a sushi aficionado, I had to have the hamachi.

Vita, located at 1906 Collins Ave., is inconspicuous on the outside but once you go inside—then back outside to their garden aka “Le Club”—you enter a completely unique dining landscape. Wednesday night at Vita happens to be one of the hautest parties of the week and it just so turned out that was also the night I checked in for my latest installment “Take’s Take: Healthier Fine Dining”.

When I first moved to Miami I was invited to the grand opening of Quattro in 2006 yet for some reason I did not go. I still have no idea why. I have heard many great things about the place so when I found out that Quattro was next on my list for “Take’s Take: Healthier Fine Dining” I made sure to make my RSVP ASAP!

Shuichi Take, one of Miami’s most sought-after personal trainers, heads to Mister Collins restaurant and takes on the menu with a healthy approach.

I have had many clients and friends over the years ask me what they should order when they go out to eat. I’m fairly confident that everyone pretty much knows what’s healthy and what’s not healthy. In most cases though, unless someone is advised what the better choice is, they are going to order what they want—which usually isn’t that healthy.  Therefore I have decided to take it upon myself to take on the arduous, burdensome task of dining at Miami’s finest restaurants to provide you with the healthier selections on their respective menus.

The new year gives many of us another try at finally getting on a workout and/or diet program that we can actually stick to. Unfortunately for many us, once the new year high fades away, so does our motivation and consistency with sticking to a healthy program.